We are always talking about how certain foods help in losing weight, certain foods help in looking younger, certain foods improve fitness, and certain foods improve health or guard against disease. But we never pause to think about the foods that cause ageing, make us unhealthy and prone to disease or make us fatter. These are the foods that should be avoided at all costs if we wish to regain health and youthfulness.

Unhealthy Foods You Should Avoid

- Salt and Sugar: Certainly these add to the taste of your food, but they cause more harm to your health. Excess salt increases blood pressure and dehydrates the skin. Excess sugar causes weight gain and a variety of other maladies result from excess consumption of these two items. It may seem difficult at first, but slowly you can train your pallette to adjust to low salt-low sugar food.

- Caffeine: Most people need their caffeine kik to start their day every morning. But this caffeine causes damage to your skin and over-work your kidneys and liver. Try switching to green tea instead as it has lesser caffeine and more antioxidants.

- Alcohol: Taken in any form, it is bad for your health. It also causes damage to the liver and the momentary high is certainly not worth the lifelong damage to health.

- Manufactured Drinks: Colas, other aerated drinks, health drinks etc are all bad for your health. Even one drink in a week causes damage. Not only they increase weight but also cause ageing due to all the sugar in them.

- Baked and Fried Foods: The trans fats found in fried foods cause a lot of damage to your heart, kidneys and liver. There is no way to avoid trans fats unless you avoid baked and fried foods.

- Red Meat: Red meat is very high in cholestrol and is best avoided for good cardiac health. If you like non-veg foods, then fish is the best for your health, other seafood and chicken are good too.

You may not be able to completely give up these food items, but even if you reduce your intake, you are moving one step towards good health and longevity.